


mother, what the war did

by hyenateeth



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gender Issues, Historical, Joan of Arc - Freeform, Other, She/Her Pronouns for Michael (Good Omens), The Hundred Years War, They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), War, gender feelings for genderless beings, through the ages
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29100927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyenateeth/pseuds/hyenateeth
Summary: Michael sometimes has occasion to visit Earth during wartime. So does Beelzebub.
Relationships: Beelzebub/Michael (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	mother, what the war did

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter deals with the trial and execution for Joan of Arc, though non graphically. 
> 
> This is also kinda just my Archangel Michael headcanons: the fic. Very on brand of me to get obsessed with a female/female coded side character though.

It was a warm day, made warmer by the heat of the fire and the crowd, so Michael found herself sweating uncomfortably in her doublet. It was an unfortunate trait of having a corporation, all the unpleasant bodily functions they came along with. For example, the nausea that swelled in Michael’s stomach, a sickly ache in response to the smell of the smoke. The sensation would have been easy enough to miracle away, but the Archangel didn’t, not yet.

It wasn’t the same, the burning of human flesh, but its smell still reminded Michael of the way her siblings had smelled, when they burned in hellfire during the First War. It sickened Michael in every sense of the word, but she did not let it show, her face as placid as ever despite the boil of emotions and sensation in her stomach.

It was May, and the weather in Rouen was objectively lovely this time of year - but Michael found herself hating the little city all the same. She liked it better in the old days, when they could raze cities, or smite humans for their sins. Michael certainly wanted to smite someone, _anyone_ , as she glared at the crowd of people surrounding her. It had been a long time since those days though. Angels weren’t allowed to interfere on Earth so much anymore, according to the last memo from God, which came fewer and far between these days. It’s why most of her peers didn’t bother much anymore, but Michael still tried, sometimes. She had been built as a General before War even existed after all, so every war since had been at least of some interest to her, some more than others. Some were interesting enough that Michael got involved.

Humans had a way of mucking it all up though. They always had, the tedious creatures.

“Well well,” buzzed a voice from behind her, and Michael didn’t need to turn to know who, or rather, _what_ it was. No human eyes lingered on her, but it seemed there was another non-human being that had found her in the crowd. “If it iszzn’t Archangel Michael, in the flesh.”

“Beelzebub,” snarled Michael, not taking her eyes off the pyre at the center of the crowd of humans. “What are you doing on Earth, demon?”

“Oh, it’s _Lord_ Beelzebub now.” The demon sidled up to Michael, and out the corner of her eye Michael inspected the demon’s corporation, small and disheveled, the fine silk of their black tabard dirty and torn, their bright red hose ripped around the knees sloppily. Their hair was dark and unkempt, tumbling from their cap down past their shoulders, longer than was fashionable for masculine dress at the moment. Most strikingly, around their neck they were wearing a variety of dingy medals, a crude parody of the medals Heaven awarded. “I got promoted after the War, for my performance in battle.”

Michael didn’t bother to comment on the contradiction of being promoted in Hell, but she did snort derisively. “Oh, and what then is a _Lord_ such as yourself doing here?”

“Same as you, and everyone here, I imagine. That was one of yourzzz, wasn’t she? The little girl?”

Michael finally pulled her eyes fully away from the spectacle to shoot a glare at the demon. She remembered Beelzebub, one of the first to fall after Lucifer. An insignificant little angel that fell and became a squirming, wretched demon. A demon that had destroyed many of Michael’s siblings during the war, and wore medals for it around their neck. The corporation they wore was small, with bad skin and scrawny limbs that Michael wanted to pull off one by one, like the insect they were. Michael had half a mind to smite them where they stood - but Earth was neutral ground, in a way. Discorporating the demon would do nothing to ease her thoughts, besides.

“Her name was Jeanne,” was what she settled for, trying not to sound as frustrated as she was.

“Oh calm down Archangel,” scoffed the demon, shifty blue eyes inspecting Michael, and Michael could see the coiled spring in the demon’s body language. They were also on edge, ready to react if Michael aggressed. Mutually assured destruction. Somehow, it settled Michael a little. “You got her soul, I’ll tell you that much. Helps when they die young doesn’t it?”

Michael shot her eyes back to the pyre where Jeanne d’Arc burned. She knew that her soul belonged to Heaven. It was why Michael had chosen her, why she had come before young Jeanne as visions. A pure soul and a brave spirit like hers was just the kind of human that caught Michael’s eye. But the purity of Jeanne’s soul was cold comfort in the wake of what the humans had done.

The form of the girl was indistinguishable already, just a dark silhouette left in the flames, but the humans were going to keep burning her until there was nothing left.

“They judged her a heretic,” Michael found herself snarling through gritted teeth. Next to her Beelzebub snorted, barely holding back a laugh.

“Your little hand-picked virgin warrior? Of course, some witch she is. What, did she recite lines from that book incorrectly? Wear the wrong symbol?”

“The wrong clothes, actually. They said she was a crossdresser.”

“A what?” When Michael shot her gaze back down to the demon they had scrunched their face up in visible confusion. “Doesn’t your lot love crosseszz?”

Despite herself Michael could have almost laughed. She didn’t, of course, but she could have. “No, it’s what they call it when a woman wears clothes intended for a man, or the other way around. It seems they’re rather strict about it.”

Beelzebub’s eyes swept up and down Michael again incredulously, and strangely Michael felt a bit of understanding towards the demon. The whole sex bit of humanity was completely foreign to celestial beings, but sometimes it felt like it was all the humans thought about.

“You’re not joking, are you?” they concluded after a moment, and Michael raised her eyebrows at the demon, snorting a little.

“Why would I ‘joke’ with a demon?”

Beelzebub huffed, looking back at the pyre. The look on their face seemed nearly offended, and once again Michael felt an unwanted sliver of empathy. The corporation that Beelzebub wore was androgynous, small and thin, leaning more towards feminine in feature but masculine in dress. Michael, on the other hand, was wearing her usual male body, and greatly disliking how she felt in it, as too was usual. It was just how the humans expected to see her, so it was the corporation she wore to make things simple. She had long wondered if a different form might fit her better - but considering how the humans were currently treating little Jeanne, she doubted they would appreciate her manifesting in anything but her current, very male body. Not that it should matter to Michael, what body she took on. It was simple public relations - but sometimes Michael found it suffocating.

“Never knew what the point in the whole ‘gender’ thing,” said the demon after a long moment of relative silence, as quiet as a public execution could be. “One of Her worszzt ideas if you aszzk me.”

“God doesn’t have bad ideas,” snapped Michael in response, because what else could she say?

“Oh come on, you can’t tell me that burning each other because of their genitals is a _good_ idea. Though it does help out my lot, doesn’t it? All that senseless violence - that’s a lot of souls for my boss, even if it is in Her name. Why I imagine we’ll get the judge, the executioner, most of this crowd…”

Michael didn’t say anything. She looked back at the burning pyre of Jeanne, at the flickering red flames and the white ash that floated through the air. Jeanne had prayed before her death, and hadn’t even known Michael was there to hear her. The Archangel had of course wanted to miracle the girl free the moment she was first imprisoned - but that was exactly the kind of thing God said they couldn’t do anymore. So Michael had to stand by as little Jeanne, barely 19 years old, was burned for being a heretic.

“She was wearing trousers so she wouldn’t be defiled!” she blurted out, just needing someone, _anyone_ to talk to. None of the other angels in Heaven cared about Michael’s pet projects, and she just needed to vent her frustration. A demon certainly wasn’t her first choice, but it was better than trying to talk to Gabriel. “And she could hardly ride into battle in a dress, could she? But no, the humans couldn’t find anything wrong with her, they just wanted to set her on fire so bad so they made it about her bloody _clothes_. If a boy had done what she did he would be just another soldier, but because she has a quim she’s a heretic. I mean- _damn it!_ ”

Michael’s hands were clenched at her sides, shaking in holy rage. If Gabriel overheard her he would tell Michael she was taking this too personally. Maybe she was taking this too personally.

“Barbaric lot, humans,” sniffed the demon derisively. “I much prefer the company I keep.”

Michael snorted. “What, other demons?”

“No.”

There was a tickle at her cheekbone that Michael raised her hand to chase away without thinking. Then she realized. Oh, of course.

“Is that what you were promoted to?” asked Michael tersely. “ _Lord of the Flies_?”

“I did create them after all.”

Beelzebub created flies the way a bricklayer built a chapel, thought the Archangel. God had been the true architect, but Michael decided not to say that at the moment. That had been half the reasons for the Fall after all - some nonsense about _credit_ and _negotiating_ and _benefits_ and other such blather - so if Michael did say something there was a good chance the demon would leave, and it would just be Michael, the humans, and the burning pyre again.

Better a demon than humans, supposed Michael.

“Much simpler too, my dear flieszz,” continued Beelzebub, several of said creatures landing on their face as they spoke, crawling over the hills and valleys of boils and pockmarks.

“Well, yes,” grumbled Michael. “They also don’t do anything except eat, breed, and die.”

“They never mess up any of my plans though, do they? Never disszzzapoint.”

Michael glowered at the demon, who shot them an ugly grin in response. After a moment of sustained glaring, the demon scoffed.

“Oh don’t take it so hard Michael. It’s a war, you had to know you weren’t sending her off to have a party. She was always going to end up getting killed.”

Something about that made Michael feel stricken. She looked away from the demon, but, of course the only other place to look was the pyre. It was true of course. Michael was not ignorant to the realities of war. But it was different with Jeanne. It hadn’t been about the war with Jeanne.

War, it seemed, cared little about Michael’s intentions.

“I wouldn’t rather it be like this,” she finally managed, and she hadn’t intended it to be a whisper, but it was all her throat would let out.

“Oh come on, what’s got you so down?” needled Beelzebub, almost sounding like they really wanted to know. “Were you sweet on her? Thinking of producing a little family of Nephilim?”

Michael cringed at the very idea. “Don’t be disgusting.”

“Well, something has to be going on to have you so glum.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” snapped Michael. The truth was she didn’t want to voice it. She knew it would sound foolish, to say that she had thought maybe if Jeanne was successful, if the people accepted her, they would accept a change in Michael. She knew it was foolish, and she certainly didn’t need Beelzebub rubbing it in. Beelzebub, who was free to wear whatever corporation or clothes they pleased, who didn’t have to worry about upholding an image. Voice bitter with venom, she added: “You’re just a _demon_.”

Beside her the demon huffed and drew back, offended. “Fine then,” they snarled. “Keep sulking with the humans. Pardon me for trying to be civil.”

There was a rush of air and buzzing as a cloud of flies flew into Michael’s face, making her jump and wave a hand in front of her face - and with that Beelzebub was gone. Michael was once again alone in the crowd.

Something like regret settled in Michael’s stomach along with the nausea. She refused to let herself miss the company of a demon, but she hadn’t meant to make them leave either. It had been making her feel better, having someone to talk to. The humans continued to be oblivious to her presence, some weeping and praying, others cheering, most simply whispering amongst themselves.

When the pyre died down the humans raked the coals, exposing what was left of Jeanne, and then burned her again so even her bones would be reduced to ash. Michael watched it all, and as she did she silently asked God to take good care of Jeanne’s soul. She asked too for forgiveness of her own sins - wrath, pride, envy. Michael knew She wasn’t listening of course, but she asked anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song Mama by My Chemical Romance, and this entire fic is kind of inspired by that song cause as it turns out, emo really wasn’t just a phase. 
> 
> Next chapter will be posted ASAP.


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